Tyson Fury says Otto Wallin was the best available opponent

By Charles Brun: Tyson Fury (28-0-1, 20 KOs) is complaining that there was no one available that would agree to fight him next other than Otto Wallin (20-0, 13 KOs). Fury, 31, says following heavyweights rejected a fight with him: Alexander Povetkin, Charles Martin, Trevor Bryan and Kubrat Pulev.

They all turned down the fight, says lineal heavyweight champion Fury. However, there are rumors that the money offered wasn’t enough to get a high caliber contender. As such, Fury is left with the Swedish heavyweight Wallin, who struggled to beat journeyman Raphael Zumbano not long ago. It’s obviously not a good sign for the boxing public that Wallin had problems beating journeyman Zumbano (39-16-1), because he should have destroyed him.

This is similar to Fury’s last opponent Tom Schwarz. He looked terrible against Senad Gashi until falling down after being head-butted in the sixth, which led to the referee giving Schwartz a disqualification win.

Fury lists fighters that were options for him

“We had three opponent,” said Fury. “Alexander Povetkin was offered to fight Tyson Fury. He said no. Then he took the fight with Hughie [Fury] instead. Kubrat Pulev was offered the fight, and he said, ‘No.’ Charles Martin, no. Trevor Bryan, no. [Jarrell] ‘Big Baby’ Miller, popped for a drug test. Dillian Whyte, popped for a drug test. [Deontay] Wilder is fighting [Luis] Ortiz. Ruiz is fighting AJ. Who is there? I could have maybe fought Chris Arreola. He’s lost 10 fights in a row or something.

Tyson Fury trying to validate Wallin as good option

Fury is trying to validate his next opponent Wallin as being a worthy challenger to his lineal heavyweight title by pointing out that he has an identical ranking at #4 WBA as WBC champion Deontay Wilder’s next opponent #4 WBC Luis Ortiz. In other words, Fury feels that the ranking by the sanctioning bodies of placing Wallin and Ortiz (31, 26 KOs) at the same spot at #4 suggests that they’re equally the same of talent. For boxing fans that have seen Wallin fight, they realize that he’s nowhere near as good a fighter as Ortiz.

The sanctioning bodies’ ranking are a poor way of judging how good a fighter is. For example, Fury’s last opponent Tom Schwarz was ranked #2 with the World Boxing Organization. However, in looking at him perform in his past fights, Schwarz looked like a fighter that should have been ranked well below #100 in the world.

Tom Schwarz had looked poor before Fury fight

Schwarz was dreadful, not just against Fury, but in his previous 24 fights. You can’t blame Top Rank for feeding Fury weak opponents in hopes of increasing his popularity in the U.S, but the American boxing fans weren’t born yesterday. They know weak opponents when they see them, and Schwarz was a textbook version of that.

Wilder (41-0-1, 40 KOs) will be defending his WBC title against Ortiz in a rematch in November. Last year, Wilder stopped Ortiz in the 10th round in March 2018. Ortiz has won his last two fights in beat Christian Hammer and Razvan Cojanu. There’s no way you can compare Otto Wallin with a talent like Ortiz. It doesn’t matter that Ortiz is now 40-years-old; he’s still a far more experienced fighter than Wallin, and a much better pedigree.

Tyson Fury ridiculed by fans for fighting Wallin

Fury has taken a massive amount of negative criticism from the boxing public since his September 14 fight against unbeaten Wallin (20-0, 13 KOs) was announced earlier this week for ESPN+ at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Wallin, 28, is another little known heavyweight with an arguably inflated ranking like Fury’s last opponent Tom Schwarz, who he beat by a second round knockout on June 15. Although Schwarz (24-1, 16 KOs)

“This is the latest boxing rankings from WBC boxing & @wbaboxingofficial if you look closely at theses rankings you all can see that my next opponent [Otto Wallin] is ranked #4 WBA & Wilder’s next opponent is ranked #4 WBC [Luis]’King Kong’ [Ortiz] just stating facts for all to see. #nuffsaid,” said Fury @gypsyking101.

Fury is wasting his time trying to build the credibility of his opponent Wallin in the eyes of the fans. It’s not going to work. For the fans to take Wallin seriously, they would need to have seen him fight high caliber opposition, and he’s not done that during his six-year pro career. Wallin’s best opponent to date is Adrian Granat, and he struggled to beat him by a 12 round unanimous decision in April of last year. Granat was knocked out in the first round by Alexander Dimitrenko in March of 2017.

Wallin will be knocked clean out says Fury

“I’ve never been out of the gym. I’ve been training nonstop,” said Fury to ESPN. “Don’t forget, when I fought Deontay Wilder, I only had two fights out of being back three years out of the ring, and only six months from being 400 pounds of being heavyweight champion of the world. Times have changed. I’ve had a lot more time to prepare. For anyone that wants to criticize Otto Wallin, take a punch in the face, and come back and see how you feel. The guy is 6’6″. He’s ranked #4 with the WBA. You can only fight who’s available at the time. This is my fifth defense of my lineal heavyweight title. I’m sure Otto is going to give me a good fight. I expect to have a good fight, and knock the guy clean out,” said Fury.

“And, I expect to beat Tyson Fury,” said Wallin.

“I look back on it as a good fight,” said Fury to @MMAonSiriusXM in talking about his match against WBC champion Deontay Wilder last December. “It was a battle of two unbeaten world champions, which rarely happens nowadays. You never get to see two unbeaten giants fighting each other for a world championships and stuff. So it was a good fight to be involved in. I believed I won the fight quite clearly. But then again, I’m not going to cry over spilled milk,” said Fury.

Fury complaining about his draw with Wilder

This won’t be the first time this type of thing happened, and it surely won’t be the last time something like this happened. The good thing about it is we both came out of the fight with more notoriety than we had before we entered, and that’s what it’s all about. We can fight again, and we can do the rematch. We can run it back, and we can see who wins again. That’s the good thing about a draw. We get to do it again,” said Fury.

Fury in favor of Joshua fighting Ruiz in Saudi Arabia

“I think it’s a good move. [Muhammad] Ali boxed in Manila, boxed in Zaire. That’s how you become a global phenomenon, boxing in different countries. But Saudi Arabia? They must be paying a lot of money, that’s all I can say,” said Fury.

It’s one thing for boxing great Muhammad Ali to have gone around the ring to fight different guys, but it’s a different story with Joshua. This is more about Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn not wanting to risk bringing him back to the United States after his bad experience last June. If Hearn had confidence in Joshua, he would bring him back to the U.S to try and redeem himself in New York.